We've just found the ultimate DIY raised planter hack using a filing cabinet - it's genius

Instagram is a gold mine when it comes to crafty (and often inexpensive) hacks, supplying us with endless home and garden ideas on the daily. And the app just did it again, courtesy of the ingenious filing cabinet planter hack by Andrew and David Harrison-Colley of @the_home_boys_.

We are always on the lookout for creative, garden upcycling ideas and this hack ticks all the boxes - original, pretty and affordable! All in all, it cost Andrew and David less than £100 to upcycle these three old filing cabinets into swanky garden planters. So if you’re after a fun DIY project, we can’t recommend this one enough. We’re certainly tempted.

Filing cabinet planter

One of the main benefits of DIY hacks is their low cost, often recreating something far more expensive in an affordable fashion. Cost was the chief motivator for The Home Boys too when getting stuck into their planter project, which they’ve documented in a step-by-step Instagram Reel.

‘We had seen similar planters, in a rust finish, which were so expensive,’ says David Harrison-Colley, one half of The Home Boys duo. ‘And then realised that filing cabinets are about the same dimensions and made from the same materials, so just decided to see if we could make them work!'

If you don’t have an unused filing cabinet to hand, don’t fret. Neither did they. Instead, they resourcefully turned to Facebook Marketplace. But Ebay works just as well, offering a breadth of options of vintage old filing cabinets.

‘We got three from Facebook Marketplace from two different sellers - one was £20 and the other two were free,’ David says. What a steal!

The process is carefully laid out by the DIY Instagrammers in the Reel description, starting with sanding down the cabinets to rid them of their paint and rust and removing the unnecessary drawers. A coat of B&Q’s wood and metal paint in La Paz in a warm rusty tone followed before drilling holes in the bottom to help with drainage for the potted plants.

Then all that’s left to do is fill it. It’s that easy! Apart from the cabinets, the pair also recommends to source topsoil for free on Facebook Markeplace, saving us some extra money. So many useful tips from these two!